Wine and Dine from the Ground Up: Spring in Full Swing

Spring is here with a vengeance and I think we're on the way to making up for our rain fall shortfall, which is a great thing; but it seems like we're going to get it all in a months time! There have been lots of happenings around the farm over the last couple weeks (even between showers). I forget how fast the grass can grow here in the Spring with an abundance of rainfall. Along with the grass we're now seeing lots of color coming from a few flowers planted last Summer.

Check out this columbine we planted last year. Its amazing that this thing come in a 3 inch pot last year now look at it! Last year it had a few blooms and we thought it was beautiful, but this year its blown us away with blooms.

This evening, Danielle and I planted some herb and tomato slips we purchased from at the Lynchburg Community Market. We planted four varieties of basil - sweet, lemon, cinnamon, and purple basil. We also planted a chive. The tomatoes are - chocolate cherry, white currant, polish linguisa, and a japanese black trifele. The herbs were planted in the round raised bed in the middle of the circular drive and the tomatoes planted in the raised bed which is next to the lettuce and strawberry bed. We were surprised to find about a dozen "volunteer" tomato plants in and around the bed. We aren't sure whether the tomatoes are growing from seeds dropped from the plants grown in the bed last year or from the compost added this year. When I lived outside Lancaster, PA, I also kept a compost pile and when I added it to the garden, I had dozens of "volunteer" tomatoes growing everywhere. That year I transplanted 30 of them and pulled the rest. So, I'm not sure where they came from. This year we only kept two of the most hardy looking volunteers in the raised bed and pulled the rest.

One of our "volunteer" tomatoes that we kept

The four basil plants with the columbine in the top left corner

Danielle working in the tomato bed

I've got to finish planting cuttings in the Spring Mill Farm Vineyard. I thought we had missed our planting window, and I still had a few cuttings left which I just had sitting in a bucket of water. These things have been in a bucket for about two months and now look at them (below). I guess they're pretty hardy! So, I will try to get them in the ground tomorrow.

On a side note, I've been wanted to get some kind of around the farm "utility vehicle" for a while, but I haven't been willing to spend the two arms and a leg required to purchase a John Deere Gator or the like. Our friends Mark and Beth over at Fox Fire Farm have a Cushman Truckster and I've had the chance to play with it over a couple years worth of visits. So I decided I "needed" a Cushman of my own. I really liked how the three wheeled Trucksters can turn and maneuver in tight places. But, like I said earlier, I couldn't justify paying too much for one. So, I've been watching Ebay and a couple weeks ago i found a Truckster in northeast Pennsylvania which needed some electrical work to get it running. I put a low ball bid on it and bought it for the whopping price of $307. About a week ago, I took a Saturday and road-tripped it PA and back to pick up the Cushman. It was 850 miles round trip and well worth the drive. I got to see the Locust Ridge Wind Farm along the way and had lots of windshield time to myself for deep thinking.

After a few hours of elbow grease and some new wiring, I got the Cushman Truckster running. When I got it started, I couldn't get it into gear and thought I would have to put a new clutch in it. The thing had been sitting for three years and I thought I'd try a little WD40. Hell, whats the worst that could happen if I was going to have to change the clutch anyway. After a little working back and forth, the clutch freed up and now its going great. Who knows when something on it will fall apart, but for what I have in it, I think I can fix it when it does.